Process of Growth
AMG Systems Ltd. was formed in 1990 to provide high quality solutions for the transmission of video, audio and data signals over optical fiber. The company has grown to become the world’s leading provider of fiber optic transmission equipment designed for CCTV networks and surveillance operations, focussing on dual redundant and self-healing capabilities particularly relevant to 24/7 real-time video operations.
Headquartered in Bedfordshire, the U.K., and ISO 9001 accredited, AMG supports installations in every region of the world either directly or through its partner companies. AMG systems operate in the Far East, the Middle East, North America and in most European Countries including the U.K.
AMG’s professional solutions are used where surveillance and security are essential to everyday life. These include transportation applications, such as highways, tunnels, rail links, ports and airports, public and government sectors, including defence establishments, prisons and correctional facilities, hospitals, shopping centers, entertainment complexes and stadia, as well as city center surveillance networks. Many of these applications rely on the innovative dual redundancy and self-healing capabilities of the products, which are particularly useful for complying with the requirements of 24/7 real-time digital video transmissions.
AMG offers a full range of fiber optic equipment including multimode, singlemode, single channel, multi-channel, drop & insert, ring and point-to-point, dual redundancy and network management for video, audio & data & Ethernet networks. Especially the drop and insert functionality has proven to be a major differentiating technical factor when the company’s products are selected for projects. In addition, AMG also provides system design, termination and testing, cable supply, custom-designed products and a full training and customer support program. AMG can also provide turnkey systems through its network of approved installers and partners.
AMG’s extensive expertise has been exploited by many multi-national companies to produce high-quality custom fiber-optic video, audio and data transmission products. These range from military specification equipment for battlefield systems for the Canadian army to high-volume data communication modems for Honeywell.
AMG Systems Ltd. is a venture capital backed company with Strathdon Investments Ltd. (www.strathdon.com) and Quayle Munro Ltd. (www.quayle.co.uk) as investors.
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AMG equipment at outstation in Dublin City and Motoway Traffic Management System (Photo by AMG Systems) |
AMG installed equipment at Dublin City Centre Control Room (Photo by AMG Systems) |
Business Models
AMG Systems is the first and foremost manufacturer of CCTV transmission equipment. Over the years the company has been “First to market” several times with a range of digital fiber optic transmission products. The latest innovation is the 3700 series, the first product range to cater full bandwidth real-time uncompressed CCTV as well as simultaneous IP over Ethernet.
The business model supports sale through value-added resellers in dedicated markets as well as distributors in the U.K. (Norbain and Fibre Optech). However, for larger projects we work directly with consultants through the entire process of design specifications through tender specifications to quotations. AMG Systems also works closely with systems integrators all over the world for tendering and subsequently for installation, testing and commissioning. The company’s unique technical service allows installers to communicate directly with the technical team in the factory -- something which often solves any issue then and there.
Product Line
The Guardian-Lite series product range is the first in the world to integrate Ethernet, low speed data and uncompressed real-time video on fiber optic CCTV transmission systems. The unique drop and insert functionality technology has further given the products a distinct competitive advantage. It is available in 4 product ranges:
l Guardian-Lite 3700 and 4700 - for singlemode fiber transmission
l Guardian-Lite 3600 and 4600 - for multimode fiber transmission
All 4 product ranges eliminate the need for separate IP, voice or data networks and enable significant savings in infrastructure to be achieved. In a wide area application on singlemode fiber, for instance a highway situation, surveillance can be carried out on high quality, uncompressed, real-time video images while the Ethernet carries IP traffic for variable message signs, phones, ANPR cameras and wireless. At the same time, the low speed data channels can carry the signals from road coils and other data systems used on modern highway systems. In a Local Area application on Multimode fiber such as sports arenas, museums, shopping centers, etc., the Ethernet provides simultaneous viewing of DVR stored images while retaining the real-time live surveillance images in the control room. All products are available for dual redundant applications and can be delivered with a dedicated network management system which can integrate with SNMP management solutions.
The Guardian-Lite series was recently selected by Alcatel for the UK NRTS, a single national approach to the future communications network on England’s motorway and trunk network which is managed and maintained by the Highways Agency. The series has also been selected for O2 in London and the highly prestigious Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar, to name but a few new applications.
Guardian-Lite 3700 - designed for low cost multi-channel video collection and distribution over singlemode fiber -- together with associated Ethernet, or low speed data and audio signals. Architectures can be configured as a “Spur”or a “ring”. When configured in a dual-redundant option Guardian-Lite3700 ensures no loss of signal during a catastrophic fiber failure or node failure.
Available for:
l 8 channel drop and insert with data/audio or Ethernet on singlemode fiber
l Up to 64 channels drop and insert using CWDM
l Dual redundant applications
Guardian-Lite 4700 - designed for low cost multi-channel point-to-point video transmission over singlemode fiber -- together with associated Ethernet, or low speed data and audio signals. No compromise on quality or latency. The unique drop and insert system provides for significant cost savings on the infrastructure without any increase in equipment cost.
Available for:
l 4 and 8 channel point to point with data/audio or Ethernet on singlemode fiber
l Dual redundant applications
The Guardian-Lite 3600 - designed for low cost multi-channel video collection over multimode fiber -- together with associated Ethernet, or low speed data and audio signals. No compromise on quality or latency. The unique drop and insert system provides for significant cost savings on the infrastructure without any increase in equipment cost.
Available for:
l 8 channel drop and insert with data/audio or Ethernet on multimode fiber
l Dual redundant applications
The Guardian-Lite 4600 - designed for low cost multi-channel point-to-point video transmission over multimode optical fiber -- together with associated Ethernet, or low speed data and audio signals. Highly resilient, managed, low cost, transmission system for both compressed and uncompressed video signals.
Available for:
l 4 and 8 channel point to point video transmission with data/audio or Ethernet on multimode fiber
l Dual redundant applications
Unique Technologies
With the launch of the second generation Guardian-Lite3700/4700 series in September 2006, AMG Systems became the first manufacturer to integrate Ethernet, low speed data, audio and high quality uncompressed video into a single fiber optic transmission system. The patented technology is ideally suited to wide area CCTV systems, including highway incident management, transport infrastructure surveillance, campus environments and perimeter security.
The new systems eliminate the need for separate IP, voice or data networks and enable significant savings in infrastructure to be achieved. In a highway situation, for instance, surveillance can be carried out on high quality, uncompressed, real-time video images while the Ethernet carries IP traffic for variable message signs, phones, ANPR cameras and wireless. At the same time, the low speed data channels can carry the signals from road coils and other data systems used on modern highway systems.
Guardian-Lite3700 is also beneficial in perimeter security situations, again enabling high quality video images to be relayed to the control room while allowing the access control system to be carried alongside. In every situation, it is a cost-effective alternative to the installation of separate Ethernet and low speed data networks.
The drop-and-insert 3700 series and the point-to-point 4700 series share AMG’s unique unlimited collection node and dual redundancy technology. In the event of catastrophic damage to the fiber optic cable, the AMG equipment automatically re-routes the video, data, audio and Ethernet signals to maintain connectivity. These resilient, self-healing capabilities are particularly relevant to round the clock surveillance operations and are not achieved by sacrificing video quality. Unlike SDH, MJPEG and Video over IP solutions, Guardian-Lite does not compress the video signal, making high-quality, real-time video to every controller’s desk a real possibility.
Marketing Strategies
AMG Systems believes firmly in continued and consistent market communication. The marketing and PR program has been developed to ensure that projects are described in in-depth case studies and significant new contracts and other relevant news are announced by press releases. The firm’s quarterly eNewsletter Lambda is a very important part of the communications strategy and it is distributed to a wide readership across the globe.
The award-winning AMG Website has been designed for ease of use and holds a full library of product sheets and instructions sheets. The Website also features all news and case studies as they become available.
AMG Systems finds it incredibly important to visit its key markets on a regular basis and the company also exhibits at major events such as IFSEC in Birmingham, Intersec in Dubai, IFSEC in India, ATEXPO in France as well as ITS (This year in Geneva). Additionally the firm exhibits at a number of local U.K. shows such as BEST and the Security Vision Road Show.
In addition, AMG conducts client specific training courses -- both for sales and technical staff.
Awards
Security Excellence Award -- In 2005 AMG Systems won the “International Achievement Award” in what is considered to be the security industry “scars” in the U.K. -- fighting off stiff competition in the finals.
It was the first time for AMG entered the awards - and the project cited was the Traffic Management System which was implemented in Athens in connection with the Olympics in 2004.
Export Business of the Year & Export Communicator of the Year 2005 -- AMG Systems won the UK Trade & Industry Regional Award for Export Business of the Year and the Regional Award for Export Communicator of the year.
It was a major recognition of the investment the company has made in developing its export sales and marketing communications -- which, among others, comprised new branding, new visual image and Website.
Innovation award 2004 -- AMG Systems is proud of the fact that the company has won several innovation awards in the 1990’s. The latest achievement is the Innovations Award 2004 issued by the Mid-Bedfordshire District Council.
Employers Excellence Award -- AMG has also received The Bedfordshire Awards for Employer Excellence as well as the Smart Innovation Award for a product development project.
Customers by major sector
l Transportation and Traffic Management
l Birmingham highway box (+400 camera systems)
l Stockholm tunnels (400 camera systems)
l Highways project in South Korea
l Athens traffic management system in Greece (300 camera systems put in place for the traffic control for 2004 Olympics)
l BA World cargo terminal
l NATO airport in Turkey
l Ben Gurion airport Tel Aviv, Israel (High integrity radar link)
l High speed rail link in South Korea
l Channel tunnel rail link phase 2 in the U.K.
l Dublin City Centre and surrounding motorways - traffic management system
l National Roads Telecommunications Services (NRTS) project by the U.K. Highways Agency. The project will provide a national digital system linking more than 14,000 roadside devices: message signs, emergency telephones, and up to 4,000 cameras and traffic monitoring systems, to the Highway Agency’s network of traffic control centers over the next 10 years.
l Several Toll roads in India.
Public and Government Sector
l Ministry of Defence Building (MoD) Whitehall
l RAF Airbase Lakenheath
l The O2
l Chelsea football stadium
l Oracle Shopping Centre
l Legoland UK
l Bexley Business Academy UK
l Most of the U.K. Universities
l Several U.K. prisons and other correction secure facilities i.e., HMP Gartree and the brand new HMP Jurby on Isle of Man
l Burj Dubai residential area
l Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar
l Kempinski Hotel Ishtar Dead Sea Resort, Jordan
l Deira City Centre, Dubai, U.A.E.
City Center Surveillance
l Jerusalem
l Bethlehem
l London (Oxford Street, Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square, Regent Street, Hyde Park, etc.)
l Town center surveillance of Hitchin, Letchworth and Stevenage in the U.K.
Guardian-Lite Series features
l Full bandwidth digital transmission format -- no compromise on video quality
l No compression real-time video -- no inherent latency
l Single fibre operation -- reduced infrastructure requirement
l High camera counts -- up to 64 channels on singlemode fiber
l Single, dual and 4 channel insert modules -- both for singlemode and multimode
l Dual redundant variants -- both for singlemode and multimode fiber
l Multiple simultaneous video plus data transmission -- enables remote control of camera functions plus bi-directional data
l Multiple drop off points -- easy routing for multiple control rooms
l 100BaseT Ethernet data transmission option -- data interface boards selects 100BaseT or RS232/422/485
l Unlimited repeat -- for long distance transmission
l SNMP compliant network management -- for remote fault reporting and diagnosis
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AMG will continue to provide both
best-of-breed and technically innovative solutions
to meet the market demands.
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Dr. Alan Hayes, CEO, AMG Systems (Photo by AMG Systems) |
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AMG Systems maintains a position as the leading provider of professional fiber optic transmission equipment specifically designed for CCTV surveillance and transportation application. The innovations embeded in the products allow for a reduction in the overall systems’ costs and provide greater system functionality. AMG equipment is used in a variety of applications throughout the world. Sunny Kim, Editor of SecurityWorld INT’L, has met with Dr. Alan Hayes, CEO of AMG Systems, who, in the interview, talks about company’s competitive edges and his ultimate vision.
AMG Systems is a world’s leading player, ISO 9001 accredited, UK-based manufacturer of optical fiber and IP-based transmission systems for CCTV network. What do you think is the driving force that made the company what it is today?
We identified requirements in the transport sector, particularly areas looking to implement CCTV surveillance along roads, railways and large airport perimeters. The principles also applied to any large area CCTV system.
In this sector, transmission systems covered huge areas, over many 100s of km and the technology at the time used for the collection of the CCTV signals was analogue transmission. This had the limitation that a signal could only be repeated a few times before the video quality reduced significantly and thus the CCTV signals could only be transmitted to a local control room. Communication between control rooms was not possible. This is where we saw a gap in the market.
The way to generate a true wide area network was to transmit the video signal in a digital format where it could be repeated effectively indefinitely. The other benefit of the digital approach was that at each repeat location signals could be added to the fiber or dropped off from the fiber. In this way a network could be put together that would not only collect all the video on the minimum number of fibers but could distribute these to any control room on the network. It was important though that any new technology did not reduce the quality of the video image and to this end the video was transmitted in an uncompressed digital format, not throwing any of the video information away. The drop and insert functionality in particular has turned out to be highly sought after -- and has proven a strong competitive advantage for AMG.
The challenge now is the increased number of camera signals. The last couple of years have seen the global market move towards increased use of “IP” for transmission of CCTV images, using different compression technologies.
CCTV is an invaluable tool in managing highway systems. Whether the cameras are used for incident detection and management, for number plate monitoring, or for any of the many other applications, it is clear that the number of cameras at the roadside will continue to increase. This raises the challenge of getting increased numbers of camera signals from the roadside to a point where they can be used or processed. However, if you compress the video signal to raise capacity, information within the video signal is discarded which cannot later be recovered. With the increasing use of video processing software, which benefits from the maximum amount of video content information, the process of compressing a video signal, just to make it more convenient for the transmission system, starts to limit the future usefulness of the delivered video signal itself.
What do you think are the greatest challenges in the current U.K. CCTV network market? Could you please update us on some of the recent industry activities and developments that you think would have a significant impact on the security industry?
Nowhere else in the world is CCTV used so widely for public area surveillance. Observed by over 4.2 million CCTV cameras across the country, Britain is already the most surveilled industrialized state in the Western world. It was recently estimated that the average Briton is captured by electronic eyes more than 300 times on a typical workday. In the last ten years, the Home Office has spent more than three quarters of its crime prevention budget on “technology of record,” and US$500 million has been spent since 1994 on the CCTV system alone. One could say, that City and Town Centre surveillance in particular to some extend has reached a level where there is little push to implement new systems. The efforts are now more focused on expanding and upgrading the systems as new and better technology emerges. There is particularly a need to look at the quality of the camera images as we have had too many instances where the CCTV images were of such poor quality that you actually could not adequately identify individuals.
A recent Home Office study revealed that more than eight out of ten of Britain’s 4.2million CCTV cameras do not provide satisfactory images. On top of that there seems to be a need to increase the CCTV system user’s knowledge of their systems and ensure that the image quality is useable and fit-for-use. This becomes even more important with the introduction of scene analysis software. It has been pointed out that the push towards IP-based CCTV systems in itself creates a limitation because of the latency and compression which is introduced. It is evident that for systems where pre-event analysis takes place, either using traditional security operators in a control room or the more recent pixel based analysis software, the reduction in video quality caused by compression can severely limit the usability of the CCTV system.
In terms of traffic management and traffic monitoring there is now an overall strategy being implemented. The U.K. Highways Agency (HA) has assumed responsibility for managing traffic on England’s 5,800 miles of motorway and trunk roads. In doing so, it is replacing 33 independently managed police control rooms with 7 linked, regional control centers in a bid to consolidate data for all 5,800 miles of strategic roads nationwide. They will be linked with the National Roads Telecommunications Service (NRTS), a 490 million scheme that forms a major part of the government’s 10-year plan for transport.
The NRTS is a facilitation system which also allows others to deliver commitments as part of the government’s plan and it forms the basis for the upgrade of the X25 network. When complete, the NRTS project will provide a national digital system linking more than 14,000 roadside devices: message signs, emergency telephones, and up to 4,000 cameras and traffic monitoring systems, to the Highway Agency’s network of traffic control centers. In effect, the HA will then be in a position to collect and analyze data from all 5,800 miles and manage traffic flows and react to incidents as if there were a single National Highway.
For the moment there is no overall similar strategy with regards to, for example, linking the city and town center surveillance systems. However, there are initiatives ongoing with regards to the future standards of CCTV as made public in October 2007 in the Home Office report “National CCTV Strategy”. We have noticed in particular that there is a recommendation to create an overlaying strategic CCTV network in connection with The Olympics in 2012 the aim of which would be to facilitate the two way flow of intelligence and images, to manage and reduce the national threat to serious, organized crime and terrorism. There is also a consideration on Town center cameras connected to ANPR systems.
In today’s hotly contested business environment, what are your competitive edges that differentiate you from other companies?
Our sales team is very focused and in constant communications with industry consultants and systems integrators. I find it important also to mention that AMG has traditionally always invested in market research in connection with entering new geographical markets. This comprise collection of information but also that we proactively visit the markets in question. We meet with key industry players and discuss the requirements, applications and trends in given areas.
We have been very successful with the applied marketing and communications strategy. The product series offer superior features and functionality at a very competitive price but even the best of products needs promotion. For the moment the hype around Video over IP require us to work with sharp branding and positioning. We therefore operate with strong and consistent market communications, also in the form of opinions and we do a fair number of keynote presentations at major industry events such as IFSEC, ITS and ATEXPO.
Please comment on AMG Systems’ ultimate vision.
AMG’s vision of the market is that it will continue to grow with an emphasis on video analysis. As we see it, the increased use of video analysis will pull through the requirement for the highest quality video signals as well as a requirement for higher resolution cameras. AMG will continue to grow within this by providing both best-of-breed and technically innovative solutions to the meet the market demands.
For more information, please send your e-mails to swm@infothe.com.
ⓒ2008 www.SecurityWorldMag.com. All rights reserved.
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